Saving my life — One British costume drama at a time.

The Bitchy Marianne Factor

I’ve been putting this off. Just as I did with the “new” version of Persuasion. I had a hard time getting around to reviewing it. The motivation was lacking. The production was un-compelling. The original was so exemplary. But then I did. Ugh.

And now I am faced with the same dour task — reviewing (read: picking apart) the newer version of Sense & Sensibility.

I don’t want to. I can’t make me. I know I should. My husband and I sat around tearing this thing to shreds like a couple of bitter cat ladies. That was way more fun than the actual watching. It was a slog. It wasn’t that it was all bad — It wasn’t. It had many problems, not the least of which was that Ang Lee’s version had so much — so very deliciously much — going for it. But even without the comparison, this version was palid and even tedious.

The main thing…. The very most central problem was the portrayal of Marianne Dashwood. If your Marianne is bad, your production is kind of doomed, don’t you think? Marianne is young. The young can be quite delightful, but they can also be self-absorbed and convinced of their own rightness rather too often. The trick with Marianne is that she is an almost-total delight. But she is also an energy-sapping pain in the neck some of the time. She carefully navigates this delicately treacherous path adeptly, so that we end up championing her causes and mourning her losses right along with her. In the end we worry for her. We’re relieved, but we are afraid her spirit will have been tamed a little too thoroughly. Ang Lee’s Marianne does all this. We feel Elinor’s affectionate exasperation; Mrs. Dashwood’s inability to stop from spoiling her Marianne a bit; Edward’s brotherly concern; Brandon’s warm attentions.

This new Marianne is (sorry) kind of a bitch. She sneers. She brushes Elinor aside completely. She simpers…Austen’s (and Lee’s) Marianne would rather die than simper. Her very first encounter with Brandon is all wrong. She almost deliberately misconstrues his discerning opinion of her piano performance. Later, she hissingly discredits him completely to Elinor. Not only is this a fabrication, but it is out of character for Marianne, and sets her up as an insufferable bitch with few redeeming characteristics.

So basically the lynchpin of the story is a bitch. Sorry. I can’t feel any of the requisite sympathy for this bitchy middle sister.

One more thing — her voice is unbearably shrill. Especially when contrasted with Elinor’s deep, mosulated, genuinely delightful, mellow-as-brandy voice. Marianne is a shrill bitch. And that’s just the beginning….